VMWARE, INC.Download PDFPatent Trials and Appeals BoardOct 8, 20212020004504 (P.T.A.B. Oct. 8, 2021) Copy Citation UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE United States Patent and Trademark Office Address: COMMISSIONER FOR PATENTS P.O. Box 1450 Alexandria, Virginia 22313-1450 www.uspto.gov APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO. 15/444,350 02/28/2017 ALOK NEMCHAND KATARIA C901 3918 152569 7590 10/08/2021 Patterson + Sheridan, LLP - VMware 24 Greenway Plaza Suite 1600 Houston, TX 77046 EXAMINER MEJIA, FELICIANO S ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2492 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 10/08/2021 ELECTRONIC Please find below and/or attached an Office communication concerning this application or proceeding. The time period for reply, if any, is set in the attached communication. Notice of the Office communication was sent electronically on above-indicated "Notification Date" to the following e-mail address(es): ipadmin@vmware.com psdocketing@pattersonsheridan.com vmware_admin@pattersonsheridan.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________ Ex parte ALOK NEMCHAND KATARIA, WEI XU, RADU RUGINA, JEFFREY W. SHELDON, JAMES S. MATTSON, RAKESH AGARWAL, and DAVID DUNN Appeal 2020-004504 Application 15/444,350 Technology Center 2400 ____________ Before JUSTIN BUSCH, CATHERINE SHIANG, and NORMAN H. BEAMER, Administrative Patent Judges. BEAMER, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s final rejection of claims 1–20.1 We have jurisdiction over the pending rejected claims under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We REVERSE. 1 We use the word “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42. Appellant identifies VMware, Inc. as the real party in interest. (Appeal Br. 3.) Appeal 2020-004504 Application 15/444,350 2 THE INVENTION Appellant’s disclosed and claimed invention is directed to mechanisms to protect the integrity of memory of a virtual machine. (Abstr.) Independent claim 1 is representative: 1. A method for protecting memory of a virtual computing instance executing within a host computer, the method comprising: receiving a first request, from a component executing within the virtual computing instance, to protect a first memory page; determining, by examining a privilege mode of the virtual computing instance, that the component is permitted to make the first request; protecting the first memory page by updating a data structure that tracks protected memory pages thereby defining a first protected memory page; detecting a write to the first protected memory page; responsive to the detecting, identifying an alert action for the first protected memory page; and performing the alert action. (Appeal Br. 15 (Claims Appx.)) REJECTIONS The Examiner rejected claims 1, 11, and 16 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Rajagopal et al. (US 2007/0055837 A1, pub. Mar. 8, 2007). (Final Act. 7–9.) Appeal 2020-004504 Application 15/444,350 3 The Examiner rejected claims 2, 4–6, 12, 14, 15, 17, 19, and 20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Rajagopal and Wright et al. (US 8,799,879 B2, iss. Aug. 5, 2014). (Final Act. 9–15.) The Examiner rejected claims 3, 13, and 18 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Rajagopal and Sallam (US 9,038,176 B2, iss. May 19, 2015). (Final Act. 15–16.) The Examiner rejected claims 7–10 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Rajagopal and Lukacs et al. (US 2017/0286673 A1, pub. Oct. 5, 2017). (Final Act. 16–20.) ISSUE ON APPEAL Appellant’s arguments present the following dispositive issue:2 Whether the Examiner erred in finding that Rajagopal discloses the independent claim 1 limitation, “determining, by examining a privilege mode of the virtual computing instance, that the component is permitted to make the first request,” and the commensurate limitations in independent claims 11 and 16. (Appeal Br. 9–10.) ANALYSIS In rejecting the independent claims anticipated by Rajagopal, the Examiner finds, with respect to the claim requirement at issue: Rajagopal does not explicitly teach examining a “privilege mode” of a software application. However Rajagopal teaches well-known methods, procedures, components, and circuits 2 Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellant and the legal conclusions and findings of the Examiner, we refer to the Appeal Brief, filed Dec. 9, 2019 (“Appeal. Br.”); the Reply Brief, filed May 29, 2020 (“Reply Br.”); the Final Office Action, mailed June 5, 2019 (“Final Act.”); and the Examiner’s Answer, mailed Apr. 2, 2020 (“Ans.”) for the respective details. Appeal 2020-004504 Application 15/444,350 4 such as typical memory protection schemes [used] to control memory access can be based upon an application’s privilege level, e.g., kernel mode and application/user mode (Rajagopal, pars. 0006 and 0012). . . . . [Rajagopal] may include a Guest Software Agent capable of attempting to allocate and access specific memory portions, and a Process Memory Table utilized to correlate memory portions with various access and control flags, i.e., marking the allocated memory portion as protected from access, such as, for example memory reads and writes. As to examining a “privilege mode”, Rajagopal, (pars. 0006 and 0012) discloses well-known methods, procedures, components, and circuits such as typical memory protection schemes [used] to control memory access can be based upon an application’s privilege level, e.g., kernel mode and application/user mode). . . . (Final Act. 6, 8; see also Ans. 6. (emphasis omitted).) Appellant argues that, rather than examining a privilege mode to determine if there is permission to make the asserted protection request,3 Rajagopal discloses a process wherein a software agent or application that requests memory is verified by comparing the application’s code image to a “golden image,” such as a hash of the application’s code, which is not examining a privilege mode of the application. (Appeal Br. 9–10; Reply Br. 2.) Appellant further argues that the Examiner’s concedes that Rajagopal does not explicitly teach examining a privilege mode of a software application, instead relying on a general reference to privilege modes in the background section of Rajagopal, is inconsistent with an anticipation rejection. (Id. at 10.) 3 Appellant also argues that Rajagopal does not disclose the independent claim requirement of receiving a request to protect a memory page. (Appeal Br. 8.) We do not need to address that argument to resolve this Appeal. Appeal 2020-004504 Application 15/444,350 5 In response, the Examiner clarifies that the statement that “Rajagopal does not explicitly teach examining a ‘privilege mode’” only meant that Rajagopal used instead a term “privilege level” instead. (Ans. 7.) Nonetheless, the Examiner only relies on the background section of Rajagopal, stating that “‘examining a privilege mode’ is a well-known practice in the art . . . .” (Ans. 6.) We agree with Appellant that this is an insufficient basis for an anticipation rejection. (Reply Br. 2.) Accordingly, we do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of independent claims 1, 11, and 16 as anticipated by Rajagopal. The rejections of the dependent claims as obvious over the combination of Rajagopal with Wright, Sallam, or Lukacs rely also on the Examiner’s finding that Rajagopal discloses the claim limitation at issue. (Final Act. 9– 20.) Therefore, we also do not sustain the obviousness rejections of claims 2, 4–6, 12, 14, 15, 17, 19, and 20 over Rajagopal and Wright, of claims 3, 13, and 18 over Rajagopal and Sallam, and of claims 7–10 over Rajagopal and Lukacs. Appeal 2020-004504 Application 15/444,350 6 DECISION SUMMARY In summary: Claim(s) Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed 1, 11, 16 102(a)(1) Rajagopal 1, 11, 16 2, 4–6, 12, 14, 15, 17, 19, 20 103 Rajagopal, Wright 2, 4–6, 12, 14, 15, 17, 19, 20 3, 13, 18 103 Rajagopal, Sallam 3, 13, 18 7–10 103 Rajagopal, Lukacs 7–10 Overall Outcome 1–20 REVERSED Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation